1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical recording/reproducing apparatus for recording information and reproducing information from an optical recording medium and, more particularly, to a swing arm driving type optical recording/reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an optical recording/reproducing apparatus employs an optical disk on which information can be recorded on both sides or a plurality of optical disks separated from each other and having centers of rotation located on the same axis as each other, in order to increase the storage capacity thereof. Information is recorded and reproduced using an optical pickup. The optical recording/reproducing apparatus is divided into a carrier driving type and a swing arm driving type depending on the driving type.
In the carrier driving type, the optical pickup is installed on a base to be capable of directly transmitting an optical beam. The optical pickup is moved along a radial direction of the optical disk by a predetermined driving means.
In the swing arm driving type, an optical spot formed on the optical disk is transmitted by the optical pickup using the rotation of the swing arm rotatably installed on the base. The swing arm driving type has an advantage over the carrier driving type of reducing the access time by determining the position of the optical spot focused on the optical disk by the rotation of the swing arm centering around one hinge point. Meanwhile, in the swing arm driving type, most optical elements of the optical pickup are fixedly arranged on the base and optical elements, such as the objective lens for condensing light on the information recording surface, are arranged on the swing arm. Accordingly, the structure and assembly of the optical recording/reproducing apparatus is complicated and the optical path is designed to be long. Therefore, the swing arm driving type has a problem in that optical loss increases.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a swing arm driving type optical recording/reproducing apparatus in which the number of optical parts is reduced by installing all optical elements of an optical pickup on a swing member and a supporting structure is improved so that the swing member easily locks to and releases from a base.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
Accordingly, to achieve the above and other objects of the present invention, there is provided an optical recording/reproducing apparatus, comprising a base, at least one optical disk rotatably installed on the base, both sides of which are information recording surfaces, a plurality of optical pickups, each including a light source for irradiating light, optical path changing means arranged on an optical path between the light source and each information recording surface for changing the traveling path of light, an objective lens arranged between the optical path changing means and a respective one of the information recording surfaces for condensing incident light on the respective information recording surface and a photodetector for receiving the light reflected from the respective information recording surface and incident via the objective lens and the optical path changing means, a swing member including a mount on which the light sources, optical path changing means and the photodetectors are installed, a plurality of swing arms extended from the mount, a suspension, one end of which is installed on a surface of each swing arm which faces the respective information recording surface, for elastically biasing the other end and a slider which is installed at the other end of the suspension, which contacts the respective information recording surface by the elastic bias of the suspension and into which the respective objective lens is loaded, supporting means interposed between the base and the mount for supporting the swing member to be reciprocally rotatable centering around one hinge point on the base and magnetic driving means for reciprocally rotating the swing member.